Mini Scoobs in Space TekaranLady Version
by Annadel
Summary: You'd think the My will be done spell would have taught Willow it’s never a good idea to attempt any spell whatsoever when you’re drunk. So, why are Xander and Willow suddenly fiveyearsold and stuck abord a spaceship?
1. Prologue

_In response to littleoldme's The Mini Scoobs in Space challenge on Twisting the Hellmouth._

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing!

**Summary:** It's never a good idea to attempt any spell whatsoever when you're drunk.

**Setting:** Well, it starts three days post "Chosen." Won't stay there, though.

**Prologue**

May 22, 2004

Kennedy died today. I can't believe it. Three days as a slayer, and poof, she's gone. I know our life is dangerous. Hello, we stopped an apocalypse three days ago! She survived literally being IN the mouth of hell, and she's killed by some stupid Torak demon that got in a lucky shot!

The others don't really seem to care much. They all thought she was an annoying, stuck up little brat. Well, maybe she was, but she was MY annoying, stuck up little brat! And, I miss her.

Maybe Xander has the right idea. I may not have the best history with booze, but that was a long time ago.

Yeah. Getting smashed sounds pretty good right about now.

I don't want to dream.


	2. Chapter 1: Oops

**Chapter 1: Oops.**

Willow and Xander were drunk. Xander had been hitting the bars surrounding good old Wolfram & Hart and the Hyperion Hotel for the past three nights trying to forget he'd lost Anya. The others mostly left him alone to deal. They mourned the eccentric ex-demon too, but they'd learned from long experience consoling usually did little more than make you angry or feel guilty because you were depressing everyone around you.

Faith joined him that first night. She'd been worried about Robin and didn't want to be sober enough to think about him not recovering. But, as soon as she'd heard he was going to be okay, she started spending all her time with him at the hospital. He couldn't blame her.

Besides, he had a different drinking partner tonight. Kennedy was taken out last night when she made a rookie mistake and dropped her guard enough for a Torak demon to literally stab her in the back. The long dagger had grazed one lung and sliced straight through her heart. She didn't have a chance. He'd never really liked the girl, but he'd mourn her. The death of a good, if somewhat overly gung-ho, slayer and loved one of his best friend always deserved that respect.

He and Willow had done their mourning over beers and shots of Jack Daniels at a little dive of a bar three blocks from the Hyperion. The owner finally kicked them out after he'd insulted the largest of five truckers and nearly started a brawl. It'd been too close to last call to bother trying anywhere else, so they were walking … well … staggering back to their temporary home.

"What good have I done, Xander?" Willow asked. The way she was slurring her words was kinda funny, in a cutesy drunk pixie kind of way, and Xander had to bite his bottom lip to keep from giggling. "I made all these slayers, but what good is a bunch of pint sized slayers who just go out and let the bogeymen kill 'em?"

"Awww Will, that Torak was just lucky," Xander answered. "The rookies will be just fine with a little training." Willow didn't look convinced. "Just wait a few years. You'll see."

He knew he'd said something wrong the moment Willow stopped walking and her eyes took on a thoughtful look.

"I want to see now," she said and immediately began mumbling.

As if this wasn't enough to get the "danger" message through his thick skull, her hair began to fade to white and her eyes glazed over with a milky film. He barely had time to squeak out a weak, "Wills?" before a shimmering vortex opened in front of them. There was a split second where he thought everything would be okay when he saw images playing across the surface like a TV before the thing swelled and engulfed them.

There was a blinding flash and immense pain, like he was being torn apart. Then, he had the enormous thrill of skidding across the ground on his butt. It took a few moments before his vision cleared enough to see, and he immediately hoped this was all some liquor induced hallucination because the Willow currently sprawled on the ground, rubbing her eyes, looked exactly the same way she had that first day in kindergarten. He glanced down at himself and groaned. He was five all over again!

"Willow!" he whined. "What'd you do?"


	3. Chapter 2: What Happened?

**Note**: In the Firefly verse, this is set between the series and the movie.

**Disclaimer**: I still own nothing.

**Author's Note:** I'm sorry this chapter was so difficult to read last time. For some reason, the line feature seems to no longer work for my account.

**Chapter 2: What happened**

"What?" Willow groaned in return. "I just opened a little time window."

"Nu-uh," Xander answered oh so eloquently. "Whatever that was wasn't little, and it wasn't a window."

"So, I put too much juice behind it. I'm sorry you got knocked on your butt," Willow snarked back. Her sight finally cleared after the spells backlash glare, and she moved to push herself off the ground only to notice it looked a lot closer than it should and was made out of metal instead of concrete. Strange. Then, she noticed something else. "Why do my clothes fit funny all of a sudden?" she asked no one in particular then took a closer look at herself to discover a distinct lack of boobs.

Uh-oh. The redhead only then turned to see Xander. He was standing several feet away. His shirt practically swallowed him whole, and he was clutching the waistband of his pants with a look that managed to be desperate, angry, annoyed, and on the brink of full out laughter all at once.

"Oh poop."

/ SCENE BREAK /

The crew aboard Serenity was enjoying supper when River stiffened abruptly. All having experienced her "episodes" before, the others tensed as well, preparing for another unpredictable River moment or immanent attack.

"Travelers," whispered the girl.

Simon started to ask who the travelers were, but a loud thump sounded from the cargo hold before he could get the words out. Mal, Zoe, and Jayne stood practically as one and started for the hold, pulling their weapons and removing the safety as they went to investigate.

"I'm just gonna go see if I can see any other ships in the neighborhood," Wash said, pushing away from the table, and nearly bolted for the bridge.

Kaylee looked expectantly at Simon, and he turned to his sister again.

"What travelers, River?" he asked.

"Shouldn't snoop," she answered. "It all went wrong."

"Who shouldn't snoop? What went wrong?" Kaylee pushed gently, trying to make sense of what River was saying.

"Uh muo!" River exclaimed. She jumped up from the table, eyes darting from side to side as her tentative hold on lucidity began to slip before taking off running down the hall. "Tyen shaio duh lao tyen, boo!"

"River!" Simon called, moving to follow the distraught seer as quickly as he could with Kaylee at his heels.

/ SCENE BREAK /

"I don't know, maybe because we're **five**!" Xander yelled. "Why'd you try it? I seem to remember beer making your magic all wonky a lo-o-o-ng time ago," he continued to rant, gesturing unconsciously until the sensation of his six sizes too big pants falling reminded him of his lack of clothing that actually fit. He grabbed at them and jerked them back up to his armpits sullenly. "You…you stupid head."

"Stupid head?" Willow looked like she was trying her best not to laugh.

"Yeah, well," Xander blushed. "I couldn't think of anything better."

"Oh, juh jen sh guh kwai luh duh jean jan…" drawled a sarcastic, too familiar voice. The two looked up to find Caleb's doppelganger standing on a catwalk above them with an intimidating looking woman on one side and a big, dumb looking guy with a big, dangerous looking gun on the other. And, they suddenly found themselves rooted to the spot. "We've got ourselves a couple brats playing dress-up in the hold." He raised his voice and shouted over his shoulder. "Does someone want to tell me why the guay there's a couple runts on my boat?"

Xander's heart felt like it was going to pound out of his chest and his eye ached even though he knew he didn't have an actual eye there anymore. "You sure Buffy got rid of Caleb, Wills?" he squeaked.

"Uh, uh-huh," she grunted in answer, big green eyes staring above them. "But I've been wrong before."

The two reached an unspoken agreement half a second later as they took off running in opposite directions, tripping over the clothes they desperately tried to hike up and looking for anything to duck behind or hide in where the nightmare they thought dead couldn't find them.


	4. Chapter 3: Hide and Seek

**Chapter 3: Hide and Seek**

"Gorram it, Mal!" Jayne grumbled, shouldering Vera. "Now we gotta go lookin' fer 'em."

"How you figurin' I'm the one what scared them off?" Mal asked, turning his back on the merc to make his way down to the hold. "More 'en like they got a look at your ugly mug what did it."

"Hey!"

"Captain's got a point," Zoe added matter-of-factly and followed Mal down into the hold to look for the children, leaving Jayne alone on the catwalk sulking like an overgrown child himself.

"I ain't that ugly!"

Zoe and Mal exchanged an amused look but otherwise ignored Jayne as they parted ways to look for the stowaways. It was a fairly small ship, and since they'd just finished a job, the hold was pretty empty. Serenity had all sorts of hidey holes if one knew where to look, but they were fairly certain their "guests" hadn't had time to find more than one or two. Finding them shouldn't be too difficult. Right?

/ Point of View Change /

Double darn! Caleb 2 was getting close. Too close. Well, then again anywhere in the same dimension was too close as far as she was concerned. Thank goddess the big, dumb one was still sulking. He was starting to tromp down the stairs, oversized boots thumping heavily on the metal stairs, but he didn't seem very interested in actually looking for her or Xander.

Mal, she supposed since that's what the goon had called the Caleb wanna be, was barely more than six feet away from her, and the woman was closing in on Xander quick. She looked over at him, and the terrified look on his face broke her heart. This was all her fault. She'd have to make Xander some cookies later, or get someone to help her make the cookies since she wouldn't be able to actually reach the knobs. But right now she had to do something to keep them from being found. There was just nowhere to hide! Maybe a concealment spell? She didn't **feel** drunk anymore.

Willow focused her power and began muttering a simple concealment spell Tara had taught her, concentrating its energy around herself and Xander. Something felt off. She couldn't tell exactly what it was, but something just didn't feel right. She attempted to redirect the spell's energy at the last second, but it was too late. Her magic went kaflooie again, and did the exact opposite of what she'd wanted…with explosive results.

All the crates in the hold slid forward a foot or two and exploded under the force of the uncontrolled magic. Everyone, adult and recently transfigured child alike, ducked away, shielding their faces with their arms as crate shards and the goopy remains of the fresh produce housed within rained down around them.

"Why duh ma huh to duh fung-kwong duh wai-shung doh!" the goon exclaimed from his position three steps up from the foot of the stairs. The shocked look on his face was almost comical.

"What did I say about laying off the mojo when you're drunk?" Xander yelled, stomping one foot for emphasis now that any possible cover was so many toothpicks and babyfood.

"Oh, like you came up with something so-o-o-o much better."

"At least I didn't blow up everything in the room!"

"It's not like I meant to!"

"Quiet!" Caleb 2 bellowed, abruptly reminding them of the reason they'd been hiding in the first place. "You two want to tell me what you're doing on my boat?"

"Uh, Captain?" the woman interjected. "I think there's something you might want to be gettin' taken care of first." She pointed to where a particularly large shard of crate had impaled the smaller man in the side.

He just looked down at it like it was moderately interesting for a moment before he sighed, "Wuh tzai chien shr ee-ding ruh dao shuh-muh run luh bah…"

**Translations:**  
_Wuh duh ma huh ta duh fung-kwong duh wai-shung doh: "Holy mother of god and all her wacky Nephews"  
wuh tzai chien shr ee-ding ruh dao shuh-muh run luh bah: . . . I surely annoyed someone or other in a past life, didn't I…_


	5. Chapter 4: And the go se hits the fan

**Author's Note:** While the past few months have been an interesting and much needed hiatus from my original universes, I really need to get back to work on the three novels I have sitting in various stages of completion or my writing career will be over before it had a chance to truly get off the ground. With three fan fics currently in progress, which I don't want to simply abandon, I'm going to start working projects on a rotating schedule. Look for updates to this story on Tuesdays, though I can't promise an update every week. It all depends on my work load.

**Chapter 4: And the go se hits the fan**

Wash had checked and double checked the radar, and there wasn't a ship, heat signature, or anomaly of any kind for three light years of their position. Reassured there was absolutely no threat of imminent attack and/or boarding, he was just about to head back to the kitchen to rejoin the others for supper when he heard an explosion in the back of the ship.

"This can't be good," he grumbled as he rushed toward the sound to check on his wife.

**/ Scene Break /**

Simon and Kaylee finally managed to calm River well enough to prevent her from running, screaming through the halls. However, that didn't necessarily mean she was calm, or even lucid. As things currently stood, Simon crouched beside his sister where she sat, huddled in the corner of their room. Kaylee watched helplessly, feeling useless, as he tried to bring River around. He looked up at her for a moment, remorse in his eyes as he considered administering yet another sedative.

"It's always dark," River mumbled in a rush, rocking back and forth and hugging her knees to her chest in a desperate plea for comfort. "They like it that way. No smoking and burnt bacon smell ruining all the fun with the lovely happy meals with legs. No…no…the dark…stick to the darkness."

"River," Simon called quietly. "What darkness? We've turned on every light in this section."

"It's not good enough," River responded, finally turning to look up at her brother with tormented brown eyes, her tone calling him a moron. "Artificial…lacking all power. They understood. They understand…but they don't comprehend."

"Who understands?"

"Want to help…" River continued, turning her attention away from Simon to resume her incessant rocking, "…need to help. Kan whu-mun tzun muh suh bah!"

It was at that moment an explosion sounded from the back of the ship. River whimpered and huddled closer into the corner. Simon turned to Kaylee, desperation written on his face. She knew he was torn between his need to care for and protect his sister and the need to go check for injuries. The mechanic didn't need to think about what she should do. She simply stepped into the room and kneeled beside Simon and River.

"Go check on the others," she told the doc. "I'll look after River."

He rewarded her with a grateful smile and took off for the cargo hold without a word.

**/ Scene Break /**

Simon made it to the catwalk over the cargo hold just in time to see Mal look down at a shard of…something…sticking out of his gut and sigh, "Wuh tzai chien shr ee-ding ruh dao shuh-muh run luh bah…" The doctor dashed down the metal staircase as quickly as he could, watching as the pain seemed to finally catch up with Mal. Why do horribly wounded people always seem to fall in slow motion?

**Translations **

Kan wuh-mun tzun muh suh bah! – Let's watch how we die!

"Wuh tzai chien shr ee-ding ruh dao shuh-muh run luh bah…" - I surely annoyed someone or other in a past life, didn't I . . .


	6. Chapter 5: Time Travel, Spaceships, and

**Author's Note:** Sorry it's taken so long to update. I've been trying to decide exactly where I want to take this one. And, I know this isn't my usual day to update this fic. Unforseen Fate was being temperamental. This one wasn't.

**

* * *

**

Chapter 5: Time Travel, Spaceships, and Genetic Reincarnation, Oh My

Willow vaguely realized someone else had entered the hold. She was too busy freaking out to spare the fact much attention.

"Oh goddess!" she exclaimed. "I killed him!" Her body began to shake as memories from just a year before began to haunt her thoughts.

"Oh my god! You killed Caleb!" Xander screeched, laughing at his own badly timed joke.

Xander's words didn't register with Willow. She sunk to the floor, unable to hold back her sobs. She'd done a very, very bad thing. She didn't even know **how** she did it, and that scared her. Any minute now they'd all realize what she'd done, and then the lecturing and the screaming and the punishing would start.

* * *

Something at the back of Zoe's mind noticed and logged Simon and Wash's entrance as the shock of his injury finally caught up with Mal. Knowing he was about to pass out, she was already moving to help break his fall when his knees gave way. She lowered the captain to the floor, applying pressure to as much of the wound as she could.

"Gwai-gwai long duh dong!" she heard Wash say from the catwalk. "Someone went and blew up all the lovely food!"

Simon was kneeling by her side. Zoe gave up her futile effort to help Mal and moved aside to let the doctor work.

Now that Mal had help, she turned her attention to the pint sized stowaways. The girl looked close to tears and the boy shrieked about someone killing someone else named Caleb before dissolving in manic laughter. One thing was sure, they were scared out of their minds.

"What are you talkin' bout little one?" she asked, inching forward and making her voice as reassuring as possible. "There's no one named Caleb here."

"Is too," the boy answered. "He's right there." He pointed straight at Mal. "He's a big eye poking meanie, and Willow killed him."

"You meanin' to say the Captain poked out your eye?" Zoe asked. This was more than a little bewildering.

"Yep," the boy answered, popping the 'p.' "Said I saw too much and then…" He made a grinding motion with his thumb. The look of abject hate and concentration on the boy's face would have been funny if it weren't so disturbing.

"Jayne," Zoe heard Simon call. "Help me get Mal to the infirmary."

The mercenary grunted and did as the doctor asked. Zoe breathed a little easier, and went back to figuring what in the verse was going on.

"What's your name?" she asked.

"Xander."

"Well, Xander, I've known the Captain quite a while now," she continued, trying to keep her voice reassuring. She sure didn't want to have to go looking for them again. "I think I might've noticed if he went around poking out little boys' eyes."

"I don't think you were with him at the time," Xander answered. He was inching his way toward the red head. "He's dressed different, and he got his hair cut. But that's the crazy preacher man who did this." Then, to Zoe's horror, the little boy lifted up the eye patch and showed her the empty socket beneath.

She'd seen worse things, sure, but it was different when it was a kid. Zoe felt the distinct need to retch.

"Xander?" the little red headed girl whimpered, looking up at the boy with big green eyes, as he reached her. "I did a bad thing."

"No, Wills," he answered. "He was the big, bad, crazy preacher man who tried to blow us all up. Remember?"

"But she says he's not," the girl argued. "We sure aren't where we were. World with no shrimp, remember? How do we know this isn't a world without Calebs?"

"One of you mind tellin' me what you're talkin' bout?" Zoe asked.

"She got drunk and wanted to see the future. Then we're suddenly five again and landing on our butts here," Xander answered and turned back to the girl. "World without Calebs? You sure you're not still drunk, Wills?"

"Go hwong-tong!" Zoe exclaimed. "Both of you are comin' with me 'n my husband." She indicated Wash, who was watching all this with slack jawed amusement. "Nobody'll hurt ya. We'll see if we can't find you some clothes that actually fit. And you two are gonna tell me exactly how you got on this boat."

* * *

Neither Willow nor Xander wanted to go with the nice lady with the big gun. But seeing as how they were pretty much helpless and there was no were to run, they decided it'd be best for their health to do what she said.

They were led into what looked like a cramped but cozy kitchen. There was a big table with eight chairs, a cook area, and the walls were painted a sunny yellow with vines and flowers stenciled on. The lady, who finally got around to introducing herself as Zoe, left them with her husband, Wash, and went to go find the others.

She came back with two young girls and the big dumb looking guy. The smallest girl reminded them of a very young Drusilla. You know, after Angelus made her crazy and before he made her a vampire. She actually made a fair amount of sense if you knew a little about what had happened.

The girl, River, as the others called her, started scolding Willow for snooping the moment she entered the kitchen. Then, she made a crack about them staying in the dryer too long.

It didn't take Willow long to figure out River was a seer, and she listened intently to everything the girl said. Between her ramblings and some of the odd questions the grown ups asked, she was able to figure out most of what happened.

They didn't figure the adults believed a word they told them, but they didn't seem inclined to throw them out of the air lock either. Oh well, it bought them a little time to try to find a way home before the crew dumped them on some backwater planet and high tailed it back to space.

Finding clothes that didn't threaten to fall down around their ankles was next to impossible. Kaylee had a shirt or two that worked as a makeshift dress on Willow when you added a belt. But, Xander was just out of luck. Jayne's stuff was **way** too big, Simon only had long sleeved shirts and wasn't willing to cut them up, and no one wanted to venture using anything of Mal's. In the end, they just trimmed Xander's stuff down and used a bit of rope to tie his pants tight enough to stay up. It's not like any of the men's pants would have fit him anyway.

And that's how Willow and Xander found themselves stuck five hundred years in the future, flying around on a spaceship with an apparently near perfect genetic copy of Caleb, and experiencing a second childhood.

Willow summed it all up in once sentence.

"I've done a bad, bad thing."

* * *

_**Translations:** _

_Gwai-gwai long duh dong! - What the hell!_

_Go hwong-tong! - Enough of this nonsense_


	7. Chapter 6: Meeting the Captain

**Chapter 6: Meeting the Captain**

Mal groaned. What'd he gone and got done to himself now? Whatever it was, he had that all too familiar fuzzy feeling he got when he'd done a lot of bleeding, and his side felt pretty gorram bad.

"What the guay's going on on my boat?" he grumbled as he reluctantly opened his eyes and eased himself into a sitting position.

"Seems we've got ourselves a couple children on board, Capt'n," Zoe answered from somewhere off to his left. Mal knew someone would most likely be there. That it was Zoe waiting wasn't much of a surprise.

"Mind telling me how two runts caused this much trouble?"

"From what I could piece together from their fong luh story," his first mate answered, "you look a lot like some hwoon dahn who caused them a lot of pain and sadness. Don't know exactly what they did to blow up them crates, but they're scared out of their minds."

"I think I wanta hear this fong luh story for my own self," Mal sighed.

Zoe shrugged from where she leaned against the large observation window, arms crossed. "Not much to tell. They claim they used to be adults from Earth-that-was. The girl claims to be a witch, who got drunk, decided to take a peak into the future, messed up the spell, and got them dumped here as children."

"Jen dao mei!"

* * *

After much fussing and hassling the good doctor, Mal left the infirmary and made his way to the guest quarters where the stowaways were being kept. He was trying to figure out how he was going to be all intimidating when he couldn't stand up straight for the continuing pain in his side when the girl noticed him standing in the doorway.

"You're alive!" she shouted, gleefully clapping small hands, before a look of terror crossed her face and she scuttled back as far into the corner as she could. "I didn't mean to make the boxes go all…" Groping for the word she was looking for, she waved her hands about in imitation of an explosion. "Don't hurt me."

Mal started forward, not realizing what he'd done until the boy placed himself between the two, obviously trying to protect his friend. "No, I don't intend on hurtin' anyone," he answered, "leastways until they go hurtin' me or mine. But, I do want to know what you two are doin' on my boat."

"Wrong turn?" the boy offered.

"Out in the middle of an empty field?" Mal asked, arching an eyebrow.

"No," drawled the boy. "In space."

"We were running away from home?" offered the girl, ignoring her friend's sarcastic crack.

"Try again."

"We already told the scary lady," the boy answered. "If you don't believe what we told her, that's your problem."

Mal closed the door then and leaned back against it, crossing his arms over his chest in an attempt to look a bit more like a big, bad captain. The effect was kinda lost when he winced.

"Alright then," he drawled. "If'n your girl here is a witch like she says, how come you two are sittin' tight right here. Seems to me, if I had them powers, I wouldn't've gotten caught in the first place. Or, I might just spell myself home."

"I can't." The girl answered. Her pixie-like face was contorted by a pouting frown. "I'm too little now. My magic's all wonky. That's why everything went explodey when I tried to hide Xander and me."

"So, you're saying your magic doesn't work unless you're big?"

The redhead nodded. "No magic before I'm a grown up, or…" She made the exploding gesture again.

"You a threat to me an' mine?"

"No magic. No threat." She answered. Her expression was resolved. "Can't do much but stomp toes or bite ankles anyway," she grumbled.

_**Translations:  
Note:** I'm not including the ones used in pretty much all Firefly fics._  
Jen dao mei! – Just our luck!


End file.
